My very best wishes to Betsy Del Vecchio, who has been named by the Pennsbury Township Board of Supervisors to replace Susan Mackey-Kallis on the Bayard Taylor Memorial Library's board of trustees. Ms. Mackey-Kallis's tenure as board president was marked by the resignations of multiple board members (who cited personal frictions with her for their departures) and a public outcry over the board's attempt to change the library's traditional name. Even a fundraising feasibility study commissioned by the library board urged her to resign.
However, Ms. Del Vecchio (a former tutor at the library's literacy program, I'm happy to say!) is joining a board that has been bolstered with some newer members with political savvy, people skills, and community connections -- experienced fundraiser Tom Swett of East Marlborough chief among them. I'm looking forward to the January 19 (7 p.m. at the library) board reorganization meeting, when the new board leadership will be chosen.
I have high hopes that they can mend fences and get the library moving in the right direction again.
In a bizarre footnote, even though the Pennsbury Township website now lists Ms. Del Vecchio as the township's representative to the library board, Ms. Mackey-Kallis has informed the press that she didn't really resign, that she is still president and intends to run the January meeting, and that Ms. Del Vecchio is just a temporary substitute board member named to fill her place while she is teaching in Japan until August. To me it seems a moot point. By the time Ms. Mackey-Kallis returns from Japan, a new group of people will be running the show on the library board, and from what I've seen they want no part of this kind of divisive and distracting bickering. To their credit!
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